Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 75793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
I’d chalked it up to desperation after the charges were filed, after he got off by a hair. A misjudgment on his part, I’d thought.
But he has known for years who Ophelia’s grandfather is. I am sure of that. He’s well aware of Gordon Carlisle-Bent’s net worth. When he learned about the old man’s health, though, did that accelerate his plans? Does that explain the fire? Did he need to get me gone, too, to leave Ophelia defenseless? But how would he have known I was even at the house? He wouldn’t.
Gordon Carlisle-Bent does not have much time left. Hell, he’d be lucky to see another Christmas. With both Horatio and me out of the way, Ophelia would be left unprotected, never suspecting them of any wrongdoing.
But there is something I’m still missing, one piece of the puzzle that is just out of reach, and I have a feeling that piece is crucial.
Why would Horatio take the fall like he did? If he knew that Fox had knowledge about who Ophelia’s grandfather is, about what he’d done in kidnapping Claire, why would he remove himself from the picture altogether and leave his daughter unprotected against a powerful enemy? It doesn’t add up.
Ophelia mutters something, her forehead creasing, agitated in sleep.
“Shh. You’re safe,” I tell her, brushing hair from her face but pulling my hand away when she flinches at my touch.
He beat her. Ethan Fox beat her black and blue. The thought of what she endured because of me, because I, like her father, left her exposed and defenseless, makes me want to kill that son of a bitch. He broke skin with his belt. Took out divots when the buckle dug into soft flesh. He whipped the bottoms of her feet raw.
I will kill him. I will kill Ethan Fox for what he did to her. I will kill Sullivan Fox. Hell, maybe Mira too. Maybe I should set their house on fire, like I am sure they did to hers. I am sure it was them. Who else would it be? Who would have cause?
But I’m back again to the same question. What would they have to gain? Nothing. Fox doesn’t take risks, and a fire is too risky. My having been at the house was a lucky break for him, but he wouldn’t have known my intention. He couldn’t have known about the box Horatio had hidden beneath the floorboards of his study.
A soft knock on the door has me clearing my throat. I turn to watch Lourdes walk inside.
She smiles and nods in greeting. Lourdes is Father Emiliano’s sister. My mother knew them both for years, and I’d gotten to know them when I brought her up here at the end when she could no longer drive herself.
When I was little, we’d come together to hear Mass at the chapel, but that stopped by the time I was fourteen. By then, I’d lost any belief I’d had in any higher being with any sort of plan for the human race. No god could exist, or, if he did, he certainly wasn’t worth my time because he’d very clearly forgotten us. As soon as I was old enough to stay home alone, I refused to accompany her. I know it broke her heart to know I did not believe in her god, but I couldn’t.
In the end, though, in those last weeks when she could no longer drive herself, or even walk on her own without help, I moved us into the Boston brownstone and brought her up to that freezing chapel every fucking Sunday. It was a comfort to her, and I sat beside her, she and I and Lourdes the only three in the pews as Father Emiliano said Mass.
All those times, as I held my mother’s frail, bird-like body close to mine, I’d cursed the very god she prayed to. She who was eternally grateful in the face of every shitty thing he sent her way, because fuck him. Fuck him for what he did to her. For forgetting her.
“Have you been here all day, Silas?” Lourdes asks in an accent so familiar, so similar to my mother’s, that it makes something ache inside me. I miss my mom. I miss her so much.
But I can’t think about that now. Ophelia needs me.
I nod. Nowhere to go, really, not with the snow. Not with the arrest warrant hanging over my head. It’s not just a charge of arson against me now. There’s also that car wreck I caused. The one where witnesses watched me ram my SUV into Ethan Fox’s limo, where they recorded me pulling Ethan out of the wreckage and beating him before I kidnapped—yes, fucking kidnapped—Ophelia.
“I’m fine.” I gesture to Ophelia as Lourdes lifts her wrist and checks her pulse. “How long until she wakes up?”